From the intersection in nature between tomatoes and a wild potato without tubers, the potatoes were born in South America as we know them today and capable of adapting to difficult conditions.
The potatoes that cheer our contours they were born spontaneously in South America 9 million years ago, from the lucky union Between the tomatoes and a family of wild potatoes free of tuber (the Solanum Etuberosum). A search published on Cell It reconstructs the evolutionary history of potatoes with tuber, the enlarged vegetable organ that develops underground and which preserves all the nutrients of the plants, such as starch, and which therefore often constitutes the part we eat.
The origin of the potatoes with tuber, which spread from the Andes in the Americas and then all over the world, is due to another flagship of the Andes, a red and rounded fruit – the tomato.
A lucky intersection
Modern potatoes resemble a kind of wild potato that grows in Chile, the Solanum Etuberosumwhich, however, is without tuber. On the other hand, according to the phylogenetic analyzes, which study the relationships between biological organisms, The potatoes are more similar to tomatoes. Sanwen Huang, professor of genomics of agriculture at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, analyzed with his research group 450 genomes of cultivated potatoes and 56 of wild potatoes.
Each species of “common” potato contained a stable and balanced mix of genetic material both of wild potatoes and tomato plants: potatoes are therefore very probably the result of an ancient hybridization event, an intersection, between these two plants. Tomatoes and Etuberosum shared a common ancestor 14 million years ago. Their roads divided, but 9 million years ago they crossed again to give rise to potatoes with tuber.
A little bit of each
Even the tuber structures that made the fortune of the cultivated potatoes are due to a genetic contribution equally divided Among the “Parenti” plants: the SP6A gene, which tells the plant when starting to form the tubers, derives from the tomatoes, while the IT1 gene, which helps to control the underground roots that form the tubers, derives from wild potatoes. Both these switches are essential for the ability of the plant to form tubers and therefore for the existence of potatoes.
A successful product
The birth of potatoes coincided with the rapid lifting of the Ande chain, a period of considerable ecological instability. The possibility of guarding the nutrients underground allowed the potatoes to survive the difficult mountain atmosphere; the ability to reproduce without seeds and without needing pollination, simply through vegetative multiplication (the formation of new gems) on the tubers, allowed the potatoes to colonize different ecological niches and different altitudes.
